Eating House — Restaurant in Melbourne

I have bought food and coffee from Eating House for the past five years. In fact I buy coffee from them almost every single day wether in person or by delivery.

I have been a huge fan of theirs to the extent that I tell all my friends that come to my house to order from Eating House.

Sadly over the past year things have gone down hill fast. The previous top notch customer service has become awful (to the point management will simply hang up the phone on you if you make a legitimate complaint that they dissagree with)

From delivering completely wrong food to that which you ordered, to forgetting items off your order. Even the coffee which has always been stellar, being delivered 3/4 full (excuse? “The foam evaporated” really? On this coffee? But not the dozens of coffees I order from you every other time?!)

Previously if you had a legitimate complaint management would take an actual interest and do their best to make sure you, the paying customer, feel listened to and understood.

In the past when food was either wrong, missing or just plain bad I personally have been offered both a refund AND a replacement meal. I HAVE NEVER ACCEPTED BOTH A REFUND AND A REPLACEMENT. I feel that a double refund is unnecessary and always accept one or the other, never both because I have never abused any situation for my benefit.

But it seems the idea of customer satisfaction and quality assurance have become a distant memory for Eating House management (I am expressly commenting on management as the actual staff members I deal with on a daily basis are always super friendly and attentive)

I was told today that even if an order is wrong or the quality is unacceptable it is now Eating House policy to simply refuse to take responsibility and is now policy to refuse refunding or replacing any of their food/drinks.

Let me make that clear, even when it is clear there is an issue it is now POLICY to no longer offer refunds to customers.

Honestly I’m really disappointed in the management here. The fact that simply by bringing a quality issue to the attention of management over the phone I was told “bye bye” and hung up on BY A MANAGER.

To be clear, I was not rude or disrespectful I simply disagreed with the line they always use these days “it was the Uber drivers fault” I’m sorry but no, when the Uber driver is EARLY for delivery and as far as I can tell has done everything correctly simply passing the blame is unacceptable.

Update: contacted Uber Eats support after failing to receive any help from Eating House. Uber Eats issued a refund on my order. The fact that the problem was with Eating House AND NOT with Uber Eats and that Uber Eats issued an immediate refund without being rude or disrespectful shows how utterly Abysmal current Eating House Management is and how unacceptable this new zero...

My experience was very average.

It wasn't a busy time of the day, as we arrived at 2:30pm. The staff were friendly throughout our visit. The chairs were terribly uncomfortable, both bench seats and chairs, this would have been my only main complaint as it made my time there very uncomfortable and actually painful.

The food was average, although it was presented nicely on the plate. The poached eggs were totally over cooked, while this happened to me isn't necessarily going to happen to you. The portion on my plate for the price was below average, I had the smashed avocado, it was on two very small sour dough toast (I initially thought it was only one slice when I first received it) with avocado and 2 eggs and a heap of green leaves to bulk it up for over $20, it arrived barely warm, I was underwhelmed.

The rest of the menu prices were over priced in my opinion as well for the quality of the food and comfortability of the chairs. For four of us; this cost including one drink each, was a total bill of $150. Dessert wasn't even going to be an option as for 1 slice of cake would set you back $14!

Staff never came around to check if our meals were ok, or if we would like another drink. Which tells me, they dont really care if we were happy or not, as I mentioned above, it wasn't like they were busy, less then half the place was empty and its just not because of any covid restrictions.

Would I go back again?

No, I wouldn't, I actually cook better poached eggs at home. There are better places to visit in Melbourne, like "The Last Piece" in Mulgrave, now that is one place to revisit again and again.

I normally would take a picture of my visit of the food and the establishment, but it wasn't worth my time at The Eating House Restaurant sadly.

PROS: Good Lighting, Friendly Staff, Relatively Spacious Restaurant. CONS: Uncomfortable Chairs, Overpriced Menu, Portion Sizes Below Average, Food Temperature Upon Service Barely Warm, Staff Don't Take Time to...

Booked for Father's day. Food was lovely. Service not so much. Our servers were lovely and offered apologies for the lateness of food and drink. And I could tell they were very busy and possibly understaffed and as you will read later there was also not enough food.

Unfortunately managerial staff were not so kind. When I asked about the drinks we had ordered with our meal I was rudely told that the bar had 70 coffee orders and I was directed to look at the bar with all the orders and told I just had to wait - in the meantime I see a large group of takeaway coffees sitting on a side table waiting (I guess they were prioritizing takeaway orders over dining orders and I understand that because we were dining in we could afford to wait a little longer but there was no need for the rude reply - a simple "sorry we have a lot of orders; yours will be out as soon as possible" would have sufficed). The only reason I asked is because all our meals had arrived and I was concerned the drinks had been forgotten.

We placed our orders with a lovely server. After a while we were told that one of the meals was unable to be prepared so that meal was changed. After everyone else's meals had arrived my daughter was still waiting. We then got told her order could not be made and she had to place an order for a different meal. While this was happening my son received his drink (which was ordered with our meals) and my daughter's drink had not arrived - it was the exact same drink as my son's so I'm not sure why they arrived at different times? We had to remind staff several times about her drink before it arrived. And her meal which had been ordered much later than her drink arrived before her drink did.

We were also charged for one of the meals that they did not serve us. And the restaurant charge a surcharge for using a card no matter if it is credit or debit. Bring cash.

We have been patrons of this restaurant for years but I don't think we will be back after...